


Moments Worth 100 Words

by afterthree



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 00:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11498211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterthree/pseuds/afterthree
Summary: Originally written and posted to The Unknowable Room archive in 2007.





	1. Blurring Lines

"Severus..."

What is right and what is easy.

That's all the fool has for him in that moment, under the desperate scrutiny of cutting Legilimens. Not even the words  _for_  him, but the memory of words said to someone else. That's all he is allowed to know and he understands it, but cuts deeper, searching for something more, something stronger from this frail old man.

"Severus, please..."

What is right and what is easy.

The old man had never told them that, sometimes, it was impossible to tell the difference.

It only made it easier, then, to summon the curse.


	2. Sheep's Clothing

He sits at the bar in this Muggle pub, comfortable, because no one knows and no one is afraid. The man to the left is unaware of the dangerous thing beside him; the woman on the right knocks against his arm, not understanding the risk of contamination.

The bartender reaches past and her scent is suddenly matted fur and sharp pine, masked by the thick layer of whiskey and smoke. Frozen, eyes meet in a moment of recognition as she smells it on him, too.

When he gets his bill, she has undercharged him.

When he leaves, he over-tips.


	3. Perhaps Because Of It

"Well..."

Peter stares at the floor and tries to see nothing until his jaw locks. A rustle of robes -- a footstep -- he even hears the whisper of eyes narrowing, and wonders if this is what it's like to be Remus when the moon rises.

"Have you decided?"

He knows already, but that's not the point.

Peter lifts his sleeve and makes the offer; his soul is worth the sliver of hope that he might survive one more day.

"Yes, my Lord."

He tries so hard not to scream when the mark burns into him, and fails perhaps because of it.


	4. The Importance of Good Timing

"James... I'm pregnant."

Everything slows down.  For James it's imperative it does, his brain incapable of processing this information at normal speed.

A  _father_? He's still sorting out what it means to be an adult - and a husband - but a  _father_  too?

 _Now_? Into  _this_  world?  Into this  _war_? Merlin, what have they done?

For Lily, the length of silence is unbearable.

"James?  Please say  _something_."

He sees her for the first time since she spoke the words, and she's terrified.  He doesn't know what to say, so he says simply: "I love you, so much."

For now, it's enough.


	5. The Question

"Do you love me?"

Lucius glanced up from the Prophet at his wife, and found her quite inscrutable.  "Excuse me?"

"Do you love me."

"What an absurd question," he noted, returning to his paper.

"Absurd because it's true or because it's not?"

He sighed. "Narcissa--"

"Humour me."  Her lips twitched, but her curiosity seemed genuine and so he considered.  Their marriage had been as much about alliances as devotion; that was the way of unions based on blood.  Love had never been the point.

"I suppose," he granted at length, then shrugged.  "If not you, then no one."

Narcissa smiled.


	6. Burden of Experience

Remus or Peter.

James refuses to see it, but Sirius knows it has to be one of them. A coincidence is just a coincidence until they start to add up, and Sirius has been mindfully keeping tally.

James tells him he's crazy, that the four of them are Gryffindors - Marauders -  _brothers_  practically - and neither of them would ever do that.

James doesn't understand -  _can't_  understand - but Sirius knows what it's like to break rank, be lured away from the family by something stronger. Sirius knows, sometimes, 'brother' isn't enough.

And so Sirius knows it has to be Remus or Peter.


	7. A One Year Curse

"Ah, Severus." The headmaster was -- as ever -- exasperatingly happy to see him.

Snape explained what he had done, sparing few details.

The headmaster nodded, then said: "Liquorice whip?"

"Sir, I have made an Unbreakable--"

"I understand what you have told me, Severus," Dumbledore cut in, "and I am unconcerned. I suggest you focus instead on your new position here."

Snape frowned. "What new position?"

"Why, Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, of course."

Snape left shortly after with a liquorice whip in hand, the job he'd been coveting, and a sneaking suspicion that something important had just happened without him.


	8. Green

Green had been Lily's favourite colour, once.

There was a green comforter on her bed, and when they played board games Lily always picked the green marker. Mrs. Evans remembers tying green ribbons in her daughter's hair to bring out the colour of her bright eyes. 

But when Lily came back from school that first year, the green blankets went quietly missing, replaced by the quilt from the closet, and when Mrs. Evans reached for the green ribbons, Lily said she'd rather wear the red ones instead.

Mrs. Evans always wondered what happened that year to ruin the colour green.


	9. Minutes

Three minutes.  Two, maybe.

The days and hours always slipped by in the week before the moon.  He'd wonder at how whole evenings would disappear in a few stale and unremarkable moments, noting the missing time more keenly these days as he marked them off with gulps of bitter Wolfsbane.

But those last minutes in that last hour -- when his skin crawled at the smell of children walking past the tightly warded door and his heart pounded as he wondered if this would be the night he'd lose himself forever --  those were the longest minutes he ever endured.

One minute.


	10. Something Else

Remus laughed.  It was a warm, full sound that expanded throughout the room, having broken out as pure reaction: an uncensored reflex from a man typically of more restrained humour.  It must have surprised her, too, because her cheeks brightened at causing such unmediated emotion.

"You should laugh like that more often," Tonks told him.  "It makes you look younger."

Later, Remus realized the danger; that his laughter could turn into something else, and he wasn't sure "something else" was what he wanted for either of them.

From that moment onwards, he took care never to be alone with her.


	11. Symbols

Lily's right hand slipped over her left, toying absently with the ring on her finger as she'd become prone to doing ever since James had given it to her the week before. He couldn't blame her for it – his eyes had been repeatedly and uncontrollably drawn to her left ring finger at least as often. It was such a physical thing, so solid and public and  _real_  – so unlike the emotions it represented, the private promises it announced just by being in that particular place.

And he marvelled that, on any other finger, it would have only been a ring.


	12. Paid, In Full

The world was celebrating.

Fireworks everywhere.  Owls nearly crashed into each other as they delivered the multitudes of good tidings.  People cheered on the streets, drank in pubs and raised their glasses to toast the end of the war.

In the house on the corner, it was quiet.  No owls had been delivered; there was no one left to send them.  Here, the price of ending the war had been too high, and as Remus endured the indecency of a world that cheered the death of his friends, he wished with all his heart that the war had never ended.


	13. Welcher

Snape receives the news by owl from Dumbledore, the information penned in precise and unusually brief words over a warning to stay put and do nothing. Later, Dumbledore appears on his doorstep, and Snape endures the interview with stoic candour, passing by every opportunity at sarcasm in careful silence, not trusting his own control.

He doesn't mention he'd been at the window waiting for news he already knew, that the life debt tying him to James Potter had tugged the breath from him the moment it had been snapped, or that the experience had been equal parts bitter and sweet.


	14. A Message in Charcoal

It's a good thing James is holding Harry, because when Lily sees the wreckage of her parents' house she becomes pure reaction.  James tries to grab her, already knowing it's too late, but she slips away from him screaming for her parents, clinging to useless, frantic hope.  Engulfed by grief, she climbs through the smouldering, charred frame that has been left as a message for them -- for  _her_  -- and he can't follow, not with Harry crying into his shoulder at the smell of burning wood.

All James can do is pray the Evans' were dead before the fire was set.


	15. The Wager

"Evans, come to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow."

Lily glanced sidelong over her pudding. "Fine."

"Come on Evans, I'm not such a bad bloke, and -- What?"

"I said fine."

James blinked.  "Does 'fine' mean... 'yes'?"

She hesitated.  "You better be both gentlemanly and entertaining tomorrow, Potter, because this is the sort of first impression you don't get a second chance at."

Punch-drunk, James returned to his dinner, and -- without the usual to fall back on -- found he didn't know what to say next.

Down the table, Sirius cockily held out a hand.  "Pay up."

Grumbling, Peter handed over the Galleon.


	16. Broken

Lily picked her way around the shattered glass to the cupboard, but when she got back with the broom and dustpan she found the flowers back in an unbroken vase and the spilled water vanished from the floor.

James looked up at her, pocketing his wand. "What are those?" he asked curiously.

Lily looked at the items in her hands, things that had seemed so obviously necessary when she'd purchased them the weeks before moving in with James.

"Nothing," she said, and took them to the garbage wondering if she would always think like a Muggle first and Witch second.


	17. Separated

George.

The tongue stumbled over an unformed consonant before pausing, then leaped forward to land heavily on his name. The inflection gave it away every time: where once the word had been pronounced with a bright, raised tone it now fell flat and depressed.

His name sounded so strange said in isolation, a lonely and foreign word he didn't quite understand. -- George. Like half a word, a suffix that couldn't make sense on its own, or a sentence left for someone else to finish.

And every time someone said it, it was a little like losing Fred all over again.


	18. Dark

There  _was_  pain, and he knew he'd been a fool to believe he deserved the quick, easy peace of the  _Avada Kedavra_. This slow, aching death was fitting, and he forced himself to experience every agonizing moment.

The colour blended into blackness, and all Snape could think was that it was too soon, that he hadn't yet had the chance to buy back his own damaged soul, and he was more afraid to die in that moment of its inevitability than he'd ever been in life when the hope that he might someday be whole again had been some comfort.


	19. Light

She was there on the other side of the black -- standing on the edge of it with a warm yellowed-brightness behind her -- and he couldn't look at her, afraid of what he might see.

"It's all right, Severus," Lily said. "I forgive you."

"You shouldn't. I don't deserve it."

"Maybe not." He looked up at the smile he'd almost forgotten. "But that's not really the point."

She leaned in to kiss his forehead, and for once the quietly platonic gesture was enough for him. He made his choice and followed her into the light, leaving the darkness behind him.


	20. Into The Woods

Remus knows he's in far too deep, pardon the pun.

He swallows gulps of air, suddenly aware of how dry his mouth is in contrast to the rest of him, sticky-slick with sweat that clings to the sheets.  Tonks relaxes against him, weighty and warm and damp, and their limbs tangle together as if the press of their chests, stomachs and hips skin on skin isn't enough -- not nearly enough -- contact to be going on with.

Breathing in, he can't tell the difference between her scent and his, and knows he's far too weak to ever leave her now.


	21. Ghost

Teddy knew little about his father.

Andromeda became stoic when Teddy fancied to wear his hair the same sandy-grey colour in his father's photograph, and thin-lipped when he pressed for details beyond his father's "condition". Harry told him what he could, but it was clear they'd only known each other a short time and Teddy longed for more than war stories.

He'd morph in the mirror until his father looked back at him and stare, as if details could be scrutinized from the replica of his face, bitter that his father hadn't left him more than patchwork memories.


	22. Well Played

Albus Dumbledore is a terribly gifted Wizard Chess player.

Where other people see three or four moves ahead, Albus sees seven or eight -- more even, sees all the possibilities and permutations of the game as it splits into different versions of itself.  For him it's not in the playing that's the challenge but rather the choosing of which game to play, and which pieces will be sacrificed.

Lately as he directs the sixty-four square campaigns he sees familiar faces in the broken and discarded pieces he's chosen to forfeit, and finds he's rather lost his taste for chess altogether.


	23. The Other Gryffindor Boy

Of the fifty first years in 1971, only four boys are sorted into Gryffindor. James and Sirius become fast friends, drawn together by the way their personalities exponentially expand and exaggerate in the presence of the other. They latch onto Remus, whose stability tempers their combustion just the right amount and allows them to create fireworks instead of explosions.

Peter is the other Gryffindor boy, and by virtue of being in the room he's granted admission so no one's left out. Eventually the other three will forget this detail, but Peter will remember that his initial inclusion was merely honorary.


	24. The Weakness of Steel

After Sirius is gone -- for real this time -- Remus experiences a surprising lack of grief. Tonks insists he doesn't need to be strong, but he doesn't think it's strength that's to blame. Her pain is new: she's young and this is the first time she's been broken, so of course she's in pieces.

Remus would fall apart if he remembered how, but he's built up resistance to it; a heart only takes so much before it calluses over in the interest of self-preservation. He feels less a Gryffindor for it, and wonders if he'll ever know how to break again.


	25. Her Men

James tells her to go back to sleep, and Lily doesn't protest when he leaves the warmth of their bed to attend to the wailing child in the next room, grateful at the chance of a full night's rest.

She comes downstairs the next morning and sees her men sleeping on the sofa, Harry craddled protectively against James' stomach, both of their mouths lolled open identically.  This is a James that is reserved only for her and Harry, a James that is never smug or arrogant, but all sweetness and softness, and Lily grins as she searches for the camera.


End file.
